Ain't No Good In Me

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." Romans 7: 18-20

If there is one thing I am ever sure of, it is that no good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. Now I will be the first one in any situation to tell you that I am no good. This might be some sort of indication that I am humble or simply that I tend to think lowly of myself. Either way it is helpful in maintaining this attitude and recognizing the truth that is there. I am not good. My flesh is corrupted and nothing good dwells within it.
Now, let's take a moment to realize that there is, in fact, good within me. However, this does not come from me but comes from God. For we know that to those who believe He bestows His Spirit. And I have the Spirit within me and so I know that there is good inside. And from that is the knowledge that there is a possibility of true good to come from me. But again, this does not truly come from me but from the Spirit of God which is within me.
When Paul speaks here he makes the distinction 'in my flesh.' There is no good in the flesh. I think this is important to realize, lest we get sucked into the illusion that it is us who does any good, that it is from ourselves that any good might flow. We need to see that.
But then we move on. "for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." First, one important thing I see here is singular first-person pronouns, or to put simply Paul is saying "me" and "I" which is important to note. Because what this implies is that, while I may indeed have desire to do what is good and what is right I cannot. God can. God does. All good things flow forth from Him. But I cannot, alone no one can. We have this desire to be good and to do good, to seek righteousness and truth, but we do not have the ability to do it. We can sit here and lament that fact, hating ourselves for our weakness or trying to atone in some way. Perhaps we take some vow, or attempt to change our lives until we gain that ability to do what is right, but it will never come. Indeed the only way we will ever find a way to fulfill that desire to do what is right is to give it to God and let Him work through us. We do not have the ability to carry out our desires. It is impossible with man, but not with God. With God all things are possible.
"The evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." This part of the verse always gets to me. We hate sin and evil. We despise it and yet that is what we keep on doing. It is a horrible symptom of the fallen condition of humanity, but all we can do is evil. It comes down to the fact that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin (Romans 14:23) and whatever we are doing of our own power is counted in there. We continue to do evil because we continue to forget that all we have and all we are comes from the Lord. That any triumphs we see are His and not ours. We must lean wholly on Him and not at all upon ourselves.
And again we come to the fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. And again I come to the same conclusions as I did before. This is in no way an indication that we are not at fault for our failings. This is an sad and stunning truth that we will all struggle with sin but we need to realize that though the flesh is weak, and in fact useless so far as this is concerned, there is a fight that needs to be had. We have good within us, though not in the flesh, but apart form it, the Spirit who dwells within us with the power that raised Christ from the dead. How much more then shall we fight against our sinful flesh knowing that power is within us? We must never accept it, never grow callous towards our sin, not feeling it and writing it off. We must see it. To see it we must acknowledge the worthlessness of our flesh and anything that is ours alone. Our effort, our pitiful attempt at righteousness, none of it is worth anything. It is the righteousness and obedience of Jesus that saves us. It is his grace and mercy that allow us to be saved. It is not of us. "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh." Amen! And I know that all good flows forth from the Lord. So let us praise Him in His magnificence and cast down our idols that we make of ourselves!